Allow parking under Ponchartrain Expy and explain the "health hazard"

Many workers in the City of New Orleans use the free parking under the expressway in order to save money for their families. The City of New Orleans has blocked the area off for parking and intends to permanently close it in with a fence. This is being explained as being done to prevent the homeless from congregating in the area. Dealing with poverty and homelessness in New Orleans will not be accomplished by building a fence and moving people around. We need real solutions to combat poverty and homelessness by empowering those people, not by shuffling them to different locations and preventing people from using free parking.

The reasons given for the closing of the area are to "remediate a health hazard". What is that health hazard? Are people who parked under there under any health risk from parking there for months? This needs to be explained as well.

So we ask that the city explain this health hazard to make sure that the people who have parked under there are safe. We also ask for the city to find alternative ways to deal with homelessness and poverty that are more productive and for them to not eliminate the access to free parking under the bridge.